A Lesson In Gastronomics

Nourishment consumed today:

pineapple+coleslaw+ hot chocolate powder mix = BAD NEWS

The rumbling in my stomache is strangely disconcerting.

Courtesy bag anyone?

I will be the happiest person in the world when this Grand Opening is over and I can stop worrying about whether the accent linens match the crown-moulding of the ball room, and eat a normal meal. Life will be infact grand then.

An Ocean of Marriages

It is amazing how much of my life is surrounded by the topic of weddings these days.

I am apparently at that age where every one of my weekend activities must consist of celebrating the marital bliss of some one (or two). Nothing makes me enjoy this more than having it shoved down my throat day in and day out.

I have been told (by a some-what senior co-worker) that I am in the middle of the "second wave" (some how this sounds like a scary menopausal condition to me). Another words, there is the "first wave"; post-college marriages of those who have dated through out highschool and/or college. The "second wave" consists of the mid-twenties marriages of people who met late in college, or within their early "adult" lives and have been dating for a few years so they decide to take the plunge so they can enjoy a few years of being newlyweds before sending me pastel invitations for baby-showers. The "third wave" is apparently right before the big 30 hits when women desperately cling to the last of their twenties, realizing that their child-bearing years are numbered, therefore, marriage is the socially-acceptable way to silence (or press snooze on) their biological clock.

These were the only "waves" I have heard of so far, but I tend to think there will be more waves coming (like the onset of a tsunami). For instance, I believe the early thirties divorce wave will be followed by the mid-thirties second-marriage wave. This wave could ride all the way in to the late-forties. In which case, this causes me to question: "Is it really a wave? Or just a perpetual state of being from the age of 21 to 50?"

It could be worse I suppose. I could be in the funeral wave.

Attention everyone who has a personality

This morning I had the delightful experience of meeting a fellow "normal" person in my office. You have no idea how exciting that is in an office full of butt-kissing engineers. I would have never in my life thought it was possible to have this quiet at office, where people DON'T go into fits of energetic erruption (except me), driven by the insanity that will inevitably take over your brain from crunching numbers all day long. I don't know who in their right mind could find this entertaining, let alone feel passion about the topic of hydraulic grade lines. It just doesn't fit in my head. There is no way for me to connect to that kind of person. So when a new employee walked into my office today and we got into a 30 minute conversation about how strange our office was with all it's lack of creativity and spirit, I felt a huge sigh of relief that I'm not insane, or the biggest un-focused idiot in the world. There are 2 of us now, possibly 3, in an office of about a thousand people. The sad part is, most people in my stage in my career are striving to have an office, that is your drive, the pinnacle of prestige in the exciting world of engineering (makes you wonder if there's a reason the white walls resemble a psychiatric institution). After being in a company with nothing but offices, I say bring me a cubicle any day! Seriously, at least cubicles promote social interaction of some kind, not complete isolation. I miss the days of rubber-band wars, throwing higlighters over the walls, and PT time as an afternoon energizer. I never thought I'd say this but...

I miss cubicles.

Maybe I've gone too far...

I realize I might have taken this green-affinity into the realms of obsession at this point... It reminds me of 8th grade when I organized my closet by color/shade (anal-retentive much??) and realized that half my closet was some shade of lime. Also, when being dropped off at the mall by our parents, my friends and I would take to the mall giggling, and I remember one specific time where I picked up a blue t-shirt to check it out, and one of my friends blurted out "but they don't have it in green!" So maybe it was time to diversify a bit... So I went to the opposite extreme (as I so often did/do - what can I say, I'm passionate) and only bought other colors to wear, no green, for many years. I even repainted my mint green room to some version of peach. Now I realize I can't fight the urges anymore, and my room is olive green, my kitchen is lime green, and my closet's green section is slowly starting to take over the rest once again. That, and I caught myself wanting to decorate a Christmas tree in all lime green ornaments. SERIOUSLY.

Is there an anonymous support group for this? Cart me off.

Do! a Deer, a Female Deer

So today is the 40th anniversary of the release of "The Sound of Music" as a film (or so it said on Good Morning America this morning), and I felt the need to reflect on how much I loved that movie as a child. I think my sister and I watched that movie weekly between the ages of 5 and 8. (It was on a rotation with "Grease 2." I must say, "Grease 2" was much racier than the first "Grease," but we did not own "Grease" for some reason.) The wholesomeness of the characters is refreshing to me now - I truly believed that each girl should have her first kiss at the age of 16 (going on 17) in a glass gazebo during a thunderstorm. I believe my sister's knack to turn any scrap of cloth she finds into a very a-la-mode ensemble originated from watching Maria Von-Traap turn her drapes into play-clothes (paisley lederhosen anyone?). My mother hummed "how do you solve a problem like Maria" in response to my preteen brattiness well over a thousand times (much to my annoyance - I mean, like, come on!). And who will ever forget the Austrian folk dance number where Captain Von-Traap fell in love with Maria, giving her his smitten stare (HAH! That's what the Baronness gets!). I will admit, as a child I tried to duplicate that dance myself several times in hopes of luring some unsuspecting foreigner away from a shapely blonde with my graceful hop-steps!

So today my goal is to run through the "mountains" of New Braunfels (ok, it's not Vienna, but close enough) singing "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE..." while drinking beer and dancing to polka music at Wurst Fest.

So it's not quite as innocent and romantic as the 1965 opening scene, but it'll do for the 2005 version.

I think I'm in a bad mood

Today I was picking up a prescription (no I'm not mentally deranged or ragingly allergic or anything) and the pharma-tech-lady glances at me for the first time and without a trace of a smile or pharmacy-related question says, "You're tall." Just like that, no question or warm tones, just stating a cold fact.

Ok, I will admit that when you're 6 foot tall and a woman, and built like a linebacker (Shall a character representing me ever be cast in a movie, the song "She's a Brickhouse" will immediately be set to the background of my entrance) this happens often. People seem to feel the need to inform me that I have unusual height, as if some how I might have overlooked that fact today. I think their tone would be different if I had modelesque stature and didn't trip over myself all the time (What is with my balance lately??), but I could be overly sensitive on this issue.

Sometime the fact is stated in a question form: "You play basketball don't you?" How do I explain that the one year I played little league basketball, the only basket I ever made was for the opposing team. I was so excited to have been passed the ball by a desperate team mate that I ran to the wrong end of the court and surprisingly shot and made the basket, much to the chagrin of my own team.

Today, being a hungry and apparently fearsomely tall woman, my answer to the pharma-tech-lady was a snappy, "you have big hands." She looked at me stunned for a moment, spun around, retreived my meds, slapped them down on the counter in a rather aggressive manner, and rung me up quite hastily.

Apparently the pharma-tech-lady was in a bad mood too.

Don't mess with the lady with the drugs.